It’s not often that you hear of a ransomware attack that has led to data breaches or a devastating impact on businesses and individuals in all sectors. Cyberattacks are getting more sophisticated, focusing on everything from personal health records to credit card details.
The job of a cybersecurity professional is to defend against these attacks by analyzing vulnerabilities and taking preventative measures. To do this successfully, they need certain skills, both technical and non-technical.
A cybersecurity professional should be proficient with various platforms and computer systems to keep up with the newest hacking techniques. This includes a working knowledge of programming languages, forensic investigations and specific tools (e.g. for example, those used for penetration testing and digital forensics). For example cybersecurity analysts need to understand how IoT devices connect to the Internet and how they could be compromised.
It is also crucial for cybersecurity professionals to be capable of identifying, assessing and prioritize risks for their organization. It’s impossible to defend yourself against every threat because hackers can come up with an almost limitless number of ways to cause problems. For instance security professionals must know that passwords should be long, complicated and comprise an array of upper and lowercase numbers, letters, and symbols, and that passwords should not contain personal information such as birthdays or the family member’s name.
To be a successful cyber professional you need to feel empathy for the victims and perpetrators of cyberattacks. This will help them understand how a cyber-hacker might think. They can then design stronger defenses.